I internalize a lot.
Writing gives me the opportunity to bring my feelings and emotions to the forefront and actually work through them.
I intellectualize my feelings most of the time. I struggle the most with the ones that I can’t make sense of.
Nothing about grief makes sense.
Nothing about losing a parent in a matter of days makes sense.
Nothing about this process is easy.
Not the logistical side, not the emotional side, not the side that makes me want to scream and yell, not the side that makes me want to feel him squeeze my hand one more time, not the side that needs him to tell me what to do and give me direction, not the side that sees so much of my life ahead of me and now has to see it completely without him.
In all of this, it’s the easiest for me to intellectualize and ‘know’ the reality.
My dad is gone.
My dad will never call me again.
I will no longer hear his voice.
He will not be at my graduation.
He will not dance with me at my wedding.
My dad will not meet my children.
The list can go on forever. I know these things. I know them to be true and to be fact.
To me, expectations are a lot more emotional. Expectations don’t always make sense to me, sometimes they just are. I wrote before that I expected to expect.
But it wasn’t just his death that I expected to expect.
I expected him to visit me this week. Because that’s what we planned.
I expected to be able to give him his Christmas present. Because I already knew where it would hang.
I expected to talk through the 2024 presidential election (and every one after that). Because I knew he would have passion and fire about it.
I expected to have at least an hour long conversation about every one of my dissertation papers. Because he always argued qualitatively and I argued with quantitative data.
I expected him to be at my graduation. Because I know it would’ve been one of the proudest moments of his life.
I expected him to visit me wherever in the world I choose to do a post-doc. Because he encouraged my adventurous spirit, something he always wanted more of.
I expected him to come visit me in my first position being a tenure-track faculty, with a sign that said ‘Dr. Parker’ to put on my desk. Because he would have said that I made it.
I expected him to be anxious in the days leading up to my wedding. Because he would want it and him to be everything I wanted.
I expected him to meet my kids, teach them about Cardinal baseball, sing ‘Forever Young’ to them, take them fishing. Because all he wanted was to be a grandfather.
I expected to have hard conversations with him. I expected some of these expectations to be difficult. Because he mattered, I care for him, I love him, and my relationship with him is one of the most important in my life.
There are just so many expectations. This is what I’ve been struggling with the past few days. How to let go of abstract ideas, things never spoken out loud, assumptions we both had because we wanted them. Expectations that will never be met and not from his doing or lack thereof. Expectations that can no longer exist. Expectations that have to turn into wishes or dreams or fantasies of what would’ve happened, what could’ve been. And that is really hard to wrap my head around and accept.
So for now, my expectations are to struggle. I expect for each of these days, each of these chapters listed above to be a little more difficult, wishing he were there. I expect to find joy in each, knowing his smile that would spread across his face, finding joy because he would be joyful.